Since Forbes hired me in 1995 to write a legal column, I’ve taken advantage of the great freedom the magazine grants its staff, to pursue stories about everything from books to billionaires. I’ve chased South Africa’s first black billionaire through a Cape Town shopping mall while admirers flocked around him, climbed inside the hidden chamber in the home of an antiquarian arms and armor dealer atop San Francisco’s Telegraph Hill, and sipped Chateau Latour with one of Picasso’s grandsons in the Venice art museum of French tycoon François Pinault. I’ve edited the magazine’s Lifestyle section and opinion pieces by the likes of John Bogle and Gordon Bethune. As deputy leadership editor, these days I mostly write about careers and corporate social responsibility. I got my job at Forbes through a brilliant libertarian economist, Susan Lee, whom I used to put on television at MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. Before that I covered law and lawyers for journalistic stickler, harsh taskmaster and the best teacher a young reporter could have had, Steven Brill.

Bloomberg Blasts The NRA. Is He The Best Leader On Gun Control?

Mayor Bloomberg on FOX's "The O'Reilly Factor," the day after the Newtown shooting.

After the NRA’s executive vice president Wayne LaPierre held a press briefing this morning, where he argued against new gun laws and called for putting armed security guards in schools across the nation, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg issued a scathing critique. It’s worth quoting at length here:

The NRA’s Washington leadership has long been out of step with its members, and never has that been so apparent as this morning. Their press conference was a shameful evasion of the crisis facing our country. Instead of offering solutions to a problem they have helped create, they offered a paranoid, dystopian vision of a more dangerous and violent America where everyone is armed and no place is safe. Leadership is about taking responsibility, especially in times of crisis. Today the NRA’s lobbyists blamed everyone but themselves for the crisis of gun violence. While they promote armed guards, they continue to oppose the most basic and common sense steps we can take to save lives – not only in schools, but in our movie theaters, malls, and streets. Enough.

Is Bloomberg America’s most effective leader on gun control? While other elected officials, including President Obama, have hesitated in the face of mass shootings, Bloomberg has spoken out immediately and forcefully after every act of headline-making gun violence. His objective is not to draw attention to himself but rather to highlight the issue and to focus on the lethal results of the nation’s lax gun policies and the failure to enforce gun restrictions that are on the books.

Here is a recap of Bloomberg’s statements following recent attacks:

The morning after 24-year-old James Holmes gunned down 12 people at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., on July 19, Bloomberg said in his weekly radio address on July 20, “Soothing words are nice, but maybe it’s time that the two people who want to be President of the United States stand up and tell us what they are going to do about it.” At the time, candidates Obama and Romney were in consolation mode, failing to say anything about restricting guns.

Two weeks later, immediately after the shooting at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis., that left seven people dead, including the shooter, the President was making vague statements of regret. “All of us are heartbroken by what’s happened,” said Obama. “I think all of us recognize that these kinds of terrible, tragic events are happening with too much regularity for us not to do some soul-searching and to examine additional ways that we can reduce violence.”

Compare that to Bloomberg, who took to the steps of a Sikh temple in Queens to make a public statement: “Still the two presidential candidates have not given the American public a plan to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people. Every day 34 Americans are murdered with guns. The fact that criminals, terrorists and other mentally ill people have access to guns is a national crisis. . . Leadership is leading from the front, not doing a survey finding out what the people want and then doing it. What do they stand for and why aren’t they standing up?”

Then came Newtown. As soon as the shooting occurred last Friday, killing 20 six- and seven-year-olds and eight adults, including the shooter, the President said he would take “meaningful action” to curb gun violence. Mayor Bloomberg waited until the President spoke and then quickly issued a statement saying, ”Calling for ‘meaningful action’ is not enough. We need immediate action. We have heard all the rhetoric before. What we have not seen is leadership — not from the White House and not from Congress. That must end today.”

Two days later Bloomberg appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press program where he said, “It’s time for the President to stand up and lead. His job is not just to be well-meaning. His job is to perform and to protect the American public.” Then Bloomberg got specific, calling on Congress to renew the 1994 ban on semi-automatic weapons that expired in 2004 and advocating improved databases to trace gun ownership, stricter enforcement of gun trafficking and more laws to block sales to criminals.

The New York Times today has a compelling piece, describing how Bloomberg has been out front on the gun issue for years. In 2006 he founded a national coalition called Mayors Against Illegal Guns, after a series of deadly police shootings in New York. The group has roughly 700 members and supports enforcement of existing gun laws and the passage of stricter measures.

Bloomberg is also putting his money where his mouth is, vowing to use a share of his billions to back anti-gun political candidates through the funding of super PACs, according to the Times. In the fall, Bloomberg spent $3.3 million on advertisements aimed at defeating Rep. Joe Baca, a pro-gun California Democrat who wound up narrowly losing his race. Bloomberg also gave to the campaign of Sen. Scott Brown, the Massachusetts Republican, after he voted against a bill supported by the National Rifle Association. (That move by Bloomberg was curious, given that Brown’s opponent, Elizabeth Warren, is a gun control proponent as well.)

Bloomberg, who is worth $25 billion according to Forbes’ latest calculation, has not been specific about how much money he would spend on the issue, telling the Times, “You see how much is needed and pick your spots where it can be effective.”

Bloomberg’s funding could make a serious difference. According to a chart drawn from IRS data published on Andrew Sullivan’s blog, pro-gun groups spent roughly $550 million promoting their cause in 2010, while anti-gun groups including the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence and Mayors Against Illegal Guns spent only around $6 million.

It seems likely that Bloomberg will continue to use his bully pulpit and his billions to continue to press the gun issue. “If you told me that I could write a check today and stop 48,000 murders in America in the next four years, can you imagine me not?” he told the Times. “What kind of person would I be?”

It’s clear that the Mayor takes the issues personally. The Times story describes how, after every police shooting in the city, the Mayor rushes to the hospital, in an effort to be the person who breaks the news to the officer’s family. But at the same time he has managed not to make his statements about himself, but about the bigger issue.

Post Your Comment

Post Your Reply

Forbes writers have the ability to call out member comments they find particularly interesting. Called-out comments are highlighted across the Forbes network. You'll be notified if your comment is called out.

so guns can pull their own trigger? yeah the 2nd amendment says you can have a muzzle loader…mental illness is not a problem…..guns are the number one killer…..Australia-Britain-south africa-most of europe have a lower crime rate then america…yepp…..your flawed…. anti-gun children dont have a leg to stand on…”shall not be infringed” look up the word “infringed” read the federalist papers, tell me again how guns are only for hunting/killing people you dont like andno t for defense, the authors of our rights wrote the 2nd they way they did because they wanted it clear that the american people have the right to be as wel armed as the government to defend themselves against a tyrannical government…but hey its ok, we can all end up disarmed and slaughtered like the jews and Armenians

Just watched him on Nightline and he re-confirmed that he is so typical of the ELITIST’S telling everyone else how to live their lives (everyone EXCEPT them of course).

He looked like an absolute FOOL when he had absolutely NO IDEA what the diffrence is between a semi-automatic weapon (which the civilian AR15 IS) and a fully automatic weapon is.

He used the skewed statistics that emotional “thinkers” (i.e., liberals/progressives, blah blah, BLAH) like to use when letting their emotions override logical thought regards “guns in homes being used ___many times more on themselves than an intruder”….unfortunately, as we’ve seen recently, people are so woefully uninformed that they won’t even have an idea as to how that figure is derived and will believe it (check it for yourself…how many times is pointing a weapon and NOT having to use it stopped a crime counted, or how many suicides would be counted in those figures…hmmm?)

We are LIED to so often and so guided by emotions rather than logic that it’s no wonder our country is SO headed in the wrong direction, and FAST-SAD, very, very SAD.

I’m quite certain that based on the latest terrible tragedy that occurred, there will be many MORE freedoms taken away from those that would never use a knife or anything else in a manner other than self defense TAKEN away, but those that think it’s the cause are kidding themselves-unfortunately, the causes of our headed where we are is MUCH deeper than passing more laws (and I know too that those very same people that “feel” it will change things for the better are the same one’s who will have emotional reactions to the truth).

The country is more divided than I’ve EVER seen it and it will conitnue to divide it’s self to it’s own detriment….”a house divided” indeed.

“Instead of offering solutions to a problem they have helped create, they offered a paranoid, dystopian vision of a more dangerous and violent America where everyone is armed and no place is safe.” hmm…the swiss have a gun murder rate of .5 per 100k…..in the more heavily armed areas of the countries gun crime is low, Chicago and DC both with extremely tight gun laws have had way more crime and gun crime then lets say AZ where you can open and conceal(as of last summer) without a permit of any kind. The government gave the drug cartels guns, they give terrorist guns, but yet they want to take those same guns from the people? what part of “shall not be infringed” is so hard for government and liberals to understand…….the one and only part of the Constitution that says that, liberals fight tooth and nail for rapists, child molesters, murders to have constitutional rights while in prison, yet they dont want to blatantly violate the rights(not privileges) of those who are not in prison….maybe a prisoner should sue to be allowed to have a gun in prison to protect himself from the other inmates and evil corrections officers then the liberals would be all for gun rights.,…..

maybe every voice is what is neccessary and if one person puts his money where is the n what do you have to compare with it talk about others is very cheap lets see if you or anybody else will really do anything besides criticize the people who areit is either put up or shut up he has my vote on the person that isdoing something, maybe if we keep the focus on violence and guns not neccessarily control, but educating the public on safe and proper handling and most importantly not to panic under fear or presure let your consciience be your guide and for heavens sake to not keep loaded weaponsin plain sight of children and explain why? mike did have well taken points on all arguments discussed thank god!!!.

what are people afraid of ?if a child burned down a house would not a parent take mathches from the child? of course they would for the safey of the other family members same thing ,only they are protecting the rest of us